ABSTRACT
The development crisis—connected as it is to the agrarian crisis—is interesting. Ideas do not create the current material reality in any straightforward, immediate sense. The post-ponism of the majority and its asceticism are not unconnected with how those who seek to speak on behalf of the majority and in their interest theorize the system, in terms of what is the main contradiction underlying the various forms of the crisis of development. The fight for concessions—including democratization of the government—is enormously worth it. Concessions are also worth fighting for if the process of fighting inculcates an awareness among the masses that there are strong limits to what is possible to gain within the system and if they teach the masses the political and intellectual skills necessary to fight. Peasants as peasants have been involved in heroic battles over dispossession from their land—in Bengal, in northern Orissa, in Maharashtra, and so many other places.
